On April 22nd, the Association of Former Manitoba MLAs kicked off their Healthy Democracy Initiative with a meeting in Winnipeg.
Association President and former MLA for Radisson Marianne Cerilli said that ensuring the health of our democracy, nationally and in Manitoba, is now more important than ever.
"We're all watching, kind of in horror, as things unravel in the United States, and also here, there have been a number of bills put forward, bylaws, that reduce people's ability to organize democratic demonstrations, to protest, to have freedom of assembly and freedom of speech...the idea that we can have certain things that are boundaries our a container for democracy, the rules that we all agree to that we're not going to transgress and sort of bend those rules, and that's something that has been happening. At the Legislative Assembly there have been attempts to reduce the language that's on bills when they're introduced so that there is no text, having large omnibus bills," said Cerilli.
Cerilli said one of the most important foundations of the Association of Former Manitoba MLAs is the idea of bipartisanship. She said the importance of working across party boundaries is very important to the Association, and to the attendees of Wednesday's meeting.
"The mandate of the Association of Former Manitoba MLAs is to protect democracy, is to engage with all parties, and to build relationships not just with former MLAs but current MLAs, and to foster that sense of bipartisanship...people are really concerned about voter turnout and strategies to improve voter turnout, people are concerned about the lack of focus on issues, and getting away from personal attacks and wedge politics, so there was a lot of conversation about that," said Cerilli.
Cerilli said the importance of bipartisanship wasn't the only thing they talked about at the meeting. Other important topics were increasing the level of education people have when it comes to politics, and making sure that all stakeholders are heard from, especially those outside of Winnipeg. At the meeting, which was in Winnipeg, 48 of the 50 seats were filled with Winnipeg residents.
"We recognize that we want this initiative to be representative geographically, as well as various sectors represented, as well as various populations of voters and citizens...there was also one group that really focused on civics education, media literacy, and having people develop critical thinking, and have people be able to even have a greater understanding of conflict resolution, and bringing that to politics and our democratic discourse...the other thing that people spent time doing is really thinking about who are the stakeholders, who needs to be at the table and in this discussion, and we spent a lot of time identifying all sorts of different players, and all the moving parts in our democracy," said Cerilli.
Cerilli said there are several things happening in Manitoba, nationally, and internationally that highlight how important the health of democracy in Manitoba is. She also hopes to see the Healthy Democracy Initiative expand so all voice in the province are heard.
